At one point in my search for a new place to live, I was standing in the middle of town trying to remember where the letting agents' office was. I'd already walked down the street where I remember it being five years ago, but it didn't seem to be there, and maybe they'd moved, and I only had an hour left before the second half of my split shift, and asking for directions is (naturally, always) an admission of defeat, so I solved the problem by - get this - finding a WiFi hotspot and Googling their name on my iPod Touch. It's one short step from this to tricorders and hyperspace travel.
Anyway, I found the letting agents and got a new place and moved into it this weekend, nearly killing my brother in the process (I don't think I've seen him too exhausted to move or speak since he was a toddler, seriously). I'm now in the coffee place across the street, taking advantage of their free WiFi and easy-listening indie-light acoustic background music with my new laptop and drinking a caramel latte.
Finding the letting agents via nifty technology felt like I was living in the future. Drinking overpriced lattes while updating my blog in a coffee shop across the road from my little urban flat feels like I'm living in my future. And it's not so bad.
I felt exactly the same way when we got a new porch light.
I hate that particular coffee shop and their overpriced, dishwater tea and their DIRTY CUPS!!! No, it didn't get like that sitting on the draining board, you moron...
Doesn't sound so bad as a vision of the future to me...